The City learned last week that after months of meetings with City Officials and community members, CT DOT has passed its first hurdle in the Walk Bridge Project and has secured permission from the Federal Transit Administration to move forward to the next phase of the project.

“This determination is only the first phase of the Walk Bridge replacement project,” explained Mayor Rilling. “While the FTA uses the term “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) to describe the end of the first phase, the finding does not mean that Norwalk will not be impacted by the project – it is a term that means that working together there are things that can be done to mitigate the short and long term effects of the project. In fact, there are many more phases to follow including numerous permits from state and federal agencies.

While the CT DOT has been working closely with the City of Norwalk and interested stakeholders to advance this project, there remains much work ahead to work out the fine details of the project including environmental mitigation, bridge design, construction sequencing, traffic and parking mitigation as well as support for economic impact mitigation for area businesses. “

“My team has facilitated 28 meetings over the past 8 months between CT DOT and various stakeholder groups,” Mayor Rilling stated. “We will continue to work diligently to ensure that the project will cause the least amount of disruption to the environment, residents and businesses in the areas surrounding the Walk Bridge. It is our top priority. To this end, we will continue to monitor all activities, undertake necessary planning and work with the CT DOT to ensure that the City of Norwalk, its residents, businesses and visitors are protected from known impacts.

We have much more planning ahead of us to ensure that the interests of our community are properly addressed before the project gets under way in 2019. I ask for the community and stakeholders to continue to take an interest, provide feedback and to prepare and plan for the upcoming project.”